Microsoft Corp is drafting a settlement proposal for a new round of talks with the U.S. government this week, aimed at resolving the landmark antitrust suit against it, lawyers close to the case said, according to a report in the Wall Street Journal's online edition on Monday. he overture comes in response to the government's decision last week to narrow legal issues in the case and not seek a breakup. It will be Microsoft's first substantive effort to settle since a June 28 ruling by the federal appeals court here that upheld the core of the government's case, the report said.Settlement efforts have failed and the government is continuing to draft a broad set of restrictions on Microsoft's business conduct that it will ask a federal court to impose. These rules are intended to take the place of a breakup, a remedy that was thrown out by the appeals court in June and formally abandoned last week by the Justice Department and 18 states involved in the case, the report said.
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